Emu Meat: What You Need to Know About This Healthy and Sustainable Meat Option

The emu is a large, flightless bird native to Australia, home of the world’s most fascinating and frankly unusual animals. People have been eating emu meat for thousands of years, and it is touted as a substitute for high-cholesterol and high-fat beef. Its popularity has waxed and waned, but now its popularity seems to be growing. Where can you buy emu meat? What is its nutritional value? What does emu meat taste like? We answer these questions below!

Nutritional Value of Emu Meat

Despite being a bird, Emu’s meat looks surprisingly like beef, lamb, or venison, as it is red. Because of this and its pH, the Food and Drug Administration determined that emu is indeed a form of red meat, but it’s inspected as poultry. At 46 milligrams per 100 grams, it is much lower in cholesterol than lamb, pork, beef, turkey, chicken, or even the meat of its cousin the ostrich, which has 83 mg per 100 grams.

Emu meat is also lower in calories than other meats usually consumed by Americans. A 100-gram oyster fillet of emu meat has 120 calories, while 100 grams of ground emu meat has 130. This is much lower than beef, pork, or ground lamb, but a bit higher than the white meat of turkey or chicken. It’s also very low in sodium and total and saturated fat, but higher in iron than any other commonly consumed meat except duck.

The best cuts of emu are the dark meat from the muscles in the thighs and drumsticks. These muscles allow the bird to move around and have a high concentration of myoglobin, which makes them “dark.” Like chicken wings, emu wings might also be considered dark meat. Interestingly, they are of little use to the emu. Emu wings are all but vestigial.

What Does Emu Meat Taste Like?

The taste of emu meat seems to differ according to the person who’s eaten it. Some love it while others find it gamey, the way some people find lamb gamey. Its lack of fat can make it chewy and tough. Other people claim emu meat tastes like beef, especially filet mignon. (Though some people find filet mignon a bit dry for their taste). This comes as a surprise to some people, since the emu is a bird.

How Many Emus Are Farmed in the United States?

A surprising number of emus are farmed in the United States. There are about 11,500 of these birds, and this number is considered an undercount. It adds up to about 70,000 pounds of emu meat sold. Though this sounds impressive, consider that the amount of beef sold, which adds up to 12,500,000 tons.

Emu are raised not only for their meat, but for their leather, hairlike feathers, eggs, and oil. Huge and deep, emerald-green emu eggs look like dragon eggs from Game of Thrones. Some people even blow the eggshells out and turn them into beautiful works of art. Additionally, they are utterly delicious, with a creamy texture.

Why Emus Are Good Farm Animals

Besides the taste and dietary qualities of their meat, emus are good animals to farm. Docile and curious, they are nothing like their aggressive cousin the cassowary with its eviscerating claw. Still, the emu is a large bird, the second largest after the ostrich, and must be treated with respect. Though they don’t gut people, their kicks have been known to break bones.

Emus tend to mate when the weather is coolish. Females are able to lay a great many eggs, for in the wild she’ll travel from one male to another, mate, lay her eggs in his nest and wander off to find another male. Chicks are full grown within six months and are ready to go to market when they’re between 15 and 18 months old. Yet because of their sheer size emus need a lot of room and a lot of food, water, and overall maintenance. If they’re well cared for, a farmed emu can live as long as 20 years.

Slaughtering emus is, as can be expected, a more involved process than slaughtering chickens. Basically, emus are processed the way cattle and pigs are processed.

The best cuts of emu are:

• Steaks
• Medallions
• Roasts
• Ground meat
• Fan or oyster fillet

Though emu meat is almost always dark meat, its lack of marbling can make it challenging to cook properly. Some chefs recommend that the thighs be seared over high heat until they’re medium rare then sliced and stir-fried or tossed on the barbie as they say in Australia. The slices work very well in Asian noodle dishes. Drumstick cuts should be braised, ideally in a slow cooker. You can also marinate emu meat in honey or chutney or ground up unused cuts and turn them into hamburgers or sausages.

Where to Find Emu Meat

Emu meat is not hard to find in the United States, as there are several farms that raise these birds. You can find one that’s near you or go online to order a sampler of emu cuts.